http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IT'S MONDAY, MARCH 27, and I've just finished reading The New York
Times. There's an astonishing story by Katharine Q. Seelye about Al
Gore's absurd plan to hijack campaign finance reform from John McCain as
his hot issue for November's presidential election. Gore says-and try
not to laugh-"If you elect me as your president, the McCain-Feingold
bill will be the first domestic legislation I send to the Congress on my
first day in office." Not only that, but he's fashioned a risky scheme
that intends to raise $7.1 billion from individuals, corporations and
unions, the interest on which will be used to fund congressional
campaigns starting in 2008. As in, when his second term has elapsed.

The good news is that Gore has completely misinterpreted the success of
McCain's primary campaign: people voted for the Senator because of his
biography, not for any of his fuzzy ideas. In fact, exit polls in most
states showed that campaign finance reform ranked near the bottom of
issues of importance to citizens. But Gore, literal and grandiose as
ever, shamelessly claiming he's been cleansed of past fundraising
violations, believes this will catapult him into the Oval Office. Chalk
up one more mistake for Tony Coelho, Donna Brazile and the Gore Gang.

The Times, naturally, is thrilled with Gore's conversion. On March 27,
the paper smugly proclaimed: "Beyond McCain-Feingold, [Gore] said he
would push for public financing through tax-deductible contributions to
a special endowment and, if that proved insufficient, would have
broadcasters provide free air time as a condition for keeping their
licenses."

That'll go over big in the communications industry.

The paper continues: "Now that Mr. Gore is declaring himself so firmly
for reform, the pressure is on Mr. Bush to come out for real reform as
well."

No it isn't. It's not time for the GOP candidate to advocate trashing
the constitutional rights of Americans; it's not time for the Texan to
abandon his equitable tax-cutting plan even though the Times lies and
says it's "designed to favor his rich campaign donors."

Incredibly, on the same page, the Times ran an editorial against the
flag-desecration amendment currently before Congress. I happen to agree
on this one: burning or destroying a flag, while repellent to some, is
certainly no crime. But right after advocating a debasement of the First
Amendment on campaign fundraising, a Times editorialist has the balls to
write: "If the Senate truly respected the Constitution it is sworn to
uphold, it would not be trifling with the Bill of Rights and its
precious guarantee of freedom of speech."

Sulzberger Jr.

As usual, the Timesmen want it all: their candidate, their
interpretation of the Founding Fathers' documents and their elite,
arrogant and presumptuous notions of how Americans should live and be
governed. This is a despicable, power-hungry newspaper that's only grown
worse with the aging of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. The paper
piously invoked Pravda when ranting, day after day, about the GOP's
arcane primary rules in New York, but amateurs like the bumbling George
Pataki aren't a patch on Sulzberger and Howell Raines.

It's fortunate that at least some editorialists learned to tell the
truth as children. David Tell, writing in the March 27 Weekly Standard,
is devastating on the topic of Gore, confirming once again why he's
probably the finest political essayist in America today. After
cataloguing the Clinton-Gore-Reno atrocities, which understandably eats
up countless column inches, Tell concludes: "Al Gore's sense of
extralegal entitlement is a dangerous thing in a would-be president. His
opponent in the forthcoming campaign, George W. Bush, may well try to
make this case. There is no guarantee Bush will succeed. Eight years
into the Clinton administration, the country's concern for the integrity
of its laws-at least as they apply to politics and politicians-has never
seemed weaker. 'Everybody does it,' Americans now routinely tell
themselves, whistling past democracy's graveyard.

"But they are wrong about that. And there will be honor in any attempt
to change their minds, even if the attempt is a practical failure.

George W. Bush should speak out, early and often, about the true import
of Al Gore's grotesque campaign fund-raising
scandals."

JWR contributor "Mugger" -- aka Russ Smith -- is the editor-in-chief and CEO of New York Press (www.nypress.com). Send your comments to him by clicking here.